NBC News is out with a new poll this morning showing that Barack Obama has received a statistically insignificant bounce of three points from the strategically significant capture and kill of 9-11 Jihad, Osama bin Laden.
The reason for such meager political rewards? Obama is weighted by overwhelming distrust of his handling of the economy by the American people.
Recall our historical look at the bounce POTUS' of days past have found after major foreign policy wins. Obama's bounce puts him at the bottom of the list.
We predicted a 10 point bounce lasting through the Fall, but apparently the American people have less trust in Obama than we thought. Bin Laden being dead is a wonderful thing, but if you're unemployed and struggling to pay your bills, the euphoria of that event washes away pretty quickly. Bill Clinton was right — it's the economy, stupid.
We poked fun at nominal GOP front runner Mitt Romney for trying to switch the subject back to jobs in the immediate wake of Osama's slaughter, thinking that such a "subject change" would be hard to effect in the short run.
Apparently, we were wrong, even now, only eight short days after Osama was euthanized.
The president’s overall approval rating is at 52 percent in an NBC News poll released late Monday – a gain of three points since last month – while his disapproval rating dropped four points to 41 percent. The post-bin Laden bounce wasn’t quite as pronounced in this poll, conducted Thursday through Saturday, as it was in some polling done in the first two days immediately after the terrorist leader was killed.
…But views of how the president is handling the economy have dropped since April to their lowest levels since Obama took office. A month ago, 45 percent of Americans said they approved of his handling of the economy. That number is now down to 37 percent, while disapproval has risen six percentage points to 58 percent. Before this month, his lowest ratings on the economy came last August, when 39 percent approved and 56 percent disapproved of his job performance on the issue.
The garage-band over at Colorado Pols has been noticeably quiet about the entire event, scarcely even commenting on the day-to-day saga that gripped the attention of a nation. The most notable exception was a Pols suggestion that Obama's pummeling of Osama was the antecedent to 4 more years.
This morning, NBC News pollsters paint a very different picture.